1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the field of personal communication devices. More particularly, this invention relates to a system and method for transmitting information from a paging device to a receiver such as a PDA (personal digital assistant).
2. General Background
Personal communication devices have become quite popular in the recent past. Paging devices, in particular, have become popular given their compact size, ease of use and relatively low cost. One problem which is pervasive with paging devices, however, is that as these devices have a high battery drain, the battery life of a pager under continuous use is often on the order of a few months. One of the elements of the pager which accounts for a significant amount of this energy consumption is the pager display which is used to display incoming messages. Efforts have been made to find alternatives to displaying incoming pager messages on the pager display in order to assist in conserving the battery life. Another perhaps even more pervasive problem is the difficulty in viewing a large amount of text given the compact size of the device and therefore, the display.
One such alternative is to provide the paging device with a PCMCIA connector which may be disposed in a PCMCIA slot within a receiving device; most commonly, a PDA (personal digital assistant) such as Sony Corporation's personal intelligent communicator, the Magic Link PIC-1000, which may be purchased from Sony Electronics Corporation, 1 Sony Drive, Park Ridge, N.J. 07656. In operation, the pager user connects the PCMCIA connector of the pager device into the PCMCIA slot of the receiving device. Through the firmware built into the device, and under the control of the processor housed therein, the incoming paging messages are caused to be displayed on the receiving device display instead of the pager display. As a result, battery drain which would normally occur as a result of displaying messages on the pager is significantly reduced or eliminated altogether. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly the generally larger display area available on the PDA allows the user to view more of the incoming message at one time. One significant disadvantage with this alternative, however, is that PDA receiving devices have a limited available number of PCMCIA slots, and it is often more desirable to leave these few slots available for use with other applications such as for connection to an external hard disk drive or for the installation of additional application software.
Accordingly, it is one object of the invention to provide a system and method of displaying incoming paging messages without causing a high battery drain from the paging device.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a system and method of displaying incoming pager messages on a receiver with a display.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a system and method of displaying more of an incoming message so that it is easier for the user to view more of such message.
It is another object of the invention to provide a system and method of displaying pager messages on a receiver having a display without using one of the limited number of PCMCIA slots available on the receiver.